It gets real for Dolphins: Time for tough-love period of camp with game in Tampa

Patrick Graham was firing off instructions to the Miami Dolphins passer rushers during a sled drill designed to teach them how to stack and shed blockers, and the defensive coordinator kept challenging his players, demanding more during the Wednesday session.

“Heavy-handed, hands in front of eyes, that’s how we have to play,” Graham requested after expressing disappointment in the first set. “I need you guys to be more violent with the shed.”

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Charles Harris, a 2017 first-round selection who had been demoted to the second-team earlier this week, stepped up to the sled, quickly lifted it past his knees and tossed it to his right, forcing Graham to take a jump back to avoid having the 250-pound sled hit him.

“Charles, I think you were throwing that s--- at me," Graham said. "That’s good! I’ll take it.”

That moment illustrated what this week of training camp, which featured two joint practices with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, looked and felt like for the Dolphins.

Graham had just demoted Harris and fellow defensive lineman Tank Carradine, replacing them with Nate Orchard, a veteran claimed off the waiver wire this offseason, and Jonathan Ledbetter, an undrafted rookie from the University of Georgia.

Harris clearly has work to do to get back into his coaches’ good graces.

But that wasn’t the only button-pushing going on.

Head coach Brian Flores called out quarterback Josh Rosen for having bad body language, challenging the second-year quarterback — who has been plagued with a reputation for exuding entitlement — to handle adversity better.

Flores challenged Rosen on the field during Tuesday’s session, and then openly criticized the second-year quarterback about something that has tarnished his reputation since his UCLA days.

The next day Flores gave Rosen his first day of exclusively working with the starting defense.

“We wanted to get him some looks with our first team but [Buccaneers defensive coordinator] Todd [Bowles] does a really good job in Tampa, and I wanted to see him against that group and some of the exotic looks that his first team was giving us,” Flores said. “Were the Mike points right? Did he really go with the correct spot with the ball based on what was there?”

Offensive line coach Dave DeGuglielmo got so frustrated with having to repeat himself to Isaiah Prince that he put the rookie offensive tackle in a timeout during Monday’s practice, forcing him to sit out a few drills.

Prince struggled in both joint practices, and DeGuglielmo wasn’t hard to find moments after the Dolphins’ sixth-round pick exited the field. He was usually in Prince’s ear.

The Dolphins are entering the tough-love period of training camp, as coaches have begun to push the players’ buttons trying to get the most out of them, and the team.

We’ll see if it pays off during Friday night’s preseason game against the Buccaneers.